Life of a Trainee Paramedic

Well I’ve had a break over the last few days where I went on a trip to the north east visiting a friend of mine whom I knew from my time in Chester.  I realised that I had never actually been this far north, so it was a whole new experience for me.  I was under the stereotypical impression of the area, in that it being a less-affluent area of the country.  That was partly confirmed but there was also some very beautiful places to see, which include Durham, which is one of the places I visited.  Durham is a lovely city, and as it was a beautiful day, you could just stroll around take everything in.  I even tried some local sweets called ‘Black Bullets’ which I thought were great, even though they are just pure sugar.  This is probably the reason that I like them.  If I had just been randomly placed in the NE, I would have had no idea where in the country I was, there loads of quaint English villages with only the most rural parts being what I imagined.  I can honestly say I had a really good time and will be going back at some point to carry on doing a little exploring.  I did though have a little trouble understanding some people.  My friend has a ‘geordie’ accent but it is not that strong, but when we were doing some shopping around a local supermarket, I had to concentrate to understand what people were saying.  It made me laugh, as people who are not from where I live have trouble understanding what I say, which was shown when I went to the States over the summer.  We went to a lovely country pub, and I visited my friend’s place of work who had completed a P.G.C.E and now had a job in a school.  Teaching was a career I had considered before I chose the ambulance service, and I still think it is a good job, but I wouldn’t be very good with unruly pupils, as I think I would get annoyed to quickly.  I’m glad that I chose the course that I’m doing now though.

The journey started off really well, as for some reason I was in 1st class!  Now this is the first time that I have ever travelled 1st class, and this was only because that it was the cheapest ticket going!  I get money off anyway with the Young-Persons railcard, but I have no idea I’d book 1st class until I went to collect my tickets.  It was while I was at work and we were on the way back to station when we stopped off so that I could pick up my tickets.  I got to the front and gave the clerk my reservation number, and when he was printing them off, he looked at my and said ‘1st class?’ with a quizzical look on his face.  I replied that I had no idea, I had just booked the cheapest tickets that were available.  It was only when I was actually on the train that I realised that when he was looking at me he must have been thinking ‘this guy doesn’t look like a 1st class passenger to me’, which has always been true!  There were tea cups on each of the tables, and the seat’s seemed to be extra comfy.  It was sat there watching the people who had boarded the wrong carriage have to move, and my parent’s sarcastically wondered why I hadn’t gone with them.  You got a hot drink, and then I was offered biscuits and some non-branded crisps.  I had no idea if these were free, and I didn’t want to ask if they were, so I just said no thankyou to avoid the embarassment and the other passangers realising that I was tredding on their turf!  Unfortunately I didn’t have that much time to get used to my new surrounding’s and I was back in standard class for the journey back.  Unless I win the lottery, I can’t see me having to many journey’slike that again.

I have always loved travelling the country by train (when there are no delay’s) as I find it really relaxing to have my ipod in, and just stare out of the window watching the world go by.  It shows you what a beautiful country that we live in, and gives you a great chance to just chill.  Roll on my next travels!

TP

Well hello! You may wonder exactly what I’ve been doing for the past 2 weeks, and why there has been a distinct lack of post’s.  I had the PHTLS course last Thursday and Friday and this Thursday and Friday we had a little bit of work on paediatric advanced life support and then we had 2 afternoon’s on the pharmacology of the drugs we use and why they cause the effects that they do.  It was actually quite interesting and I felt that I have got things in my head now that I won’t forget, or at least that’s the hope.

The trauma course entailed having quite a few PowerPoint presentation’s on the different area’s of trauma and then we had some skill station’s, where we got to test out our newly learned skills, and to see if we had actually taken anything in.  On the Friday we had a MCQ paper, which we haven’t got back yet, but there were question’s in there that I wouldn’t have been sure of the answer if we hadn’t done the course.  When I had read round the subject, using some books that my mentor has given me, I found that I was more prepared for the test that I would have been originally.  There are quite a few books that we had to get on a range of subjects and I’ve been reading more doing some self-directed learning which has been good.  I had last weekend off, and I can honestly say that I didn’t really do anything, and I loved it!  From Tuesday of this week though it has been non-stop with me having to be up before 6am everyday for either work or uni.

With my mentor being off due to his wife having a baby, congratulation’s to them, I went out with his partner who is a newly qualified Paramedic but because they couldn’t find a partner for him, we were out on a car.  We went to a total of 3 jobs all day which I found really boring, and I’m now 100% certain that I prefer to be on a vehicle than the car.  On that evening though, we went to a 17yr old asthmatic who was having an attack, and when a crew arrived, I was asked to jump on with them, just in case everything went down hill.  When we got to hospital, I found my colleague had been called to an RTC and didn’t get back till 30 mins after our shift ended, but I had to wait as my bag, and more importantly car keys, were still in the car.  I’ve learned from that mistake.  On the Wednesday we were back on a vehicle and we had quite a busy day with a range of jobs.  I prefer to be busy that spend hours on standby, but when we are there I have the chance to do some reading.  I have to take my iPod though as I would get distracted to quickly if I didn’t.

Thursday and Friday this week was nice and chilled, we managed to get away earlier than normal to avoid the traffic, but on the Friday I thought I’d try a different way home to avoid the queue’s at some roadworks’s where I’ve been spending 20-30mins, but I ended up having a tour of the surrounding area, and ended up taking over an hour longer than normal.  So much for my initative!

This weekend I have been out with my secondary mentor, who I go out with when my mentor is off and we’ve had a good 2 days.  I got to give my 2nd IM injection to a diabetic who had been involved in an RTC.  One job that did annoy me today was when we got called to someone who had been playing in an American football game and had dislocated their finger, with no other injuries!  A 999 response for something like this is a total misuse of the service, sometimes the word emergency get’s forgotten.  Oh well! When we asked why he couldn’t have travelled by car, we were told that all the coaches, who had cars, had to stay with the equipment.  Obviously this ruled out the thought of a taxi or a friend!  It’s been gorgeous weather though, albeit a little cold, but it has been nice days to work.  I’m off now until uni on Thursday and then I’m back at work next Tuesday which will be another busy couple of weeks.

TP

Well we have had our 1st week of being back to uni and now we are at the beginning of our 2nd week.  As we are in 4 days for both these 2 weeks, we have got one module crammed in so that all we will be doing after this is the clinical side and the anatomy and physiology side of things.  The module is about professional issues in Paramedic practice and I think that it’s purpose is to try and prepare us for different situation’s that we may encounter.  It is to try and help us critically reflect on and review our personal and professional development as we work towards becoming a registered professional.  Basically it’s about ethics, the Law, Equality and Diversity and health promotion which can all be potentially dry stuff!

On Thursday and Friday we went through Advanced Life Support, Cannulation, Intubation, Needle Cricothyroidotomy  and Needle Thorocentesis.  This was enjoyable as we got to play around with things, and the cannulation arms actually have tubes going inside them which contain a red-ish fluid to simulate blood which will then back flow into the cannula just like blood would.  We also had quiz lessons on the vascular system and the respiratory system to test our knowledge, which I think is going to become a regular event to keep us on our toes, although when we got split into teams, it unsuprisingly got a little competitive! We did after all, have malteser’s and lolly’s to aim for!

I’m sad to say that my team didn’t win!

Yesterday was my first shift at back at work, and it seemed like I had never been away.  It was a nice easy day though and we even got free ice cream’s, which we obviously couldn’t refuse.

This week we are finishing off the module, but we are also have two full days of trauma life support in the pre-hospital environment.  This is a course that is also run by the ambulance services.  It emphasises the need for rapid assessment of the critical trauma patient, treatment of shock and hypoxaemia and rapid transportation to the appropriate hospital.  We then have a MCQ test at the end over what we have done.  It should be good fun!

TP